Favorite Part of the Cuentos Project -- audio recordings, Spring 2013
As part of the first Cuentos field trip, the student authors visited KSU's AVTS (Audio Visual Technical Services). These recordings were done in the studio by Patricia Dunn.
Multilingual and multiliteracy are two cornerstones of the project. Research is very clear on not only the cognitive and cultural benefits of bilingualism, but also the value of building strength in literacy that will transfer to new languages.
The student authors in the Cuentos project bring linguistic riches to the work that they do. They begin the project either as monolingual speakers of Spanish, in different stages of becoming bilingual (emergent bilinguals), or already bilingual in a home language and Spanish. Many of our students of Guatemalan heritage speak a home language that is neither Spanish nor English. They are of Mayan heritage and speak languages such as Mam, Q'anjob'al, and K'iche'. A more complete list can be found on the Resources page of this wiki. For the oral history part of the project, students interview a family member, then write about that family member. We work on the questions in Spanish and English, but often the student has to conduct the interview in a non-Spanish home language, then translate the responses to either Spanish or English. Sophisticated linguistic gymnastics by children labeled "at risk" or "English deficient"!
Here is a clip from an interview conducted by Dana, a student in our project in Spring 2013. Dana had a high level of metalinguistic awareness, and went on to write a story called "My Three Languages" in English after beginning the project only knowing Mam and Spanish. Samples of Dana's work appear below.
Dana's Interview in Mam with her Brother (1-minute clip)
Favorite Part of the Cuentos Project -- audio recordings, Spring 2013
As part of the first Cuentos field trip, the student authors visited KSU's AVTS (Audio Visual Technical Services). These recordings were done in the studio by Patricia Dunn.
Multilingualism
Multilingual and multiliteracy are two cornerstones of the project. Research is very clear on not only the cognitive and cultural benefits of bilingualism, but also the value of building strength in literacy that will transfer to new languages.
The student authors in the Cuentos project bring linguistic riches to the work that they do. They begin the project either as monolingual speakers of Spanish, in different stages of becoming bilingual (emergent bilinguals), or already bilingual in a home language and Spanish. Many of our students of Guatemalan heritage speak a home language that is neither Spanish nor English. They are of Mayan heritage and speak languages such as Mam, Q'anjob'al, and K'iche'. A more complete list can be found on the Resources page of this wiki. For the oral history part of the project, students interview a family member, then write about that family member. We work on the questions in Spanish and English, but often the student has to conduct the interview in a non-Spanish home language, then translate the responses to either Spanish or English. Sophisticated linguistic gymnastics by children labeled "at risk" or "English deficient"!
Here is a clip from an interview conducted by Dana, a student in our project in Spring 2013. Dana had a high level of metalinguistic awareness, and went on to write a story called "My Three Languages" in English after beginning the project only knowing Mam and Spanish. Samples of Dana's work appear below.
Dana's Linguistic Analyses!
Dana's Story of Her Languages
Sample Story in Mam
Same Story in Spanish
Table of Words in Mam, Spanish & English